English Listening Practice

English Listening Practice

On this page you will find a variety of articles to listen to help you improve your general listening skills. For listening exercises specific to the IELTS exam click here. If you are looking for academic listening click here.

How to use this page: English Listening Practice

Don’t just use this page to help you with your listening skills, use it to improve all of your English skills. First, let’s review how to use this page to help you improve your general listening skills. There are two things that you can do. You can listen to the recordings, just to get used to listening to English. You have 4 to 5 speeds that you can choose from. The slowest speed is for beginners. If you really want to test yourself try the fastest speed, which is 30% faster than a regular speaking voice. If you chose to listen to the recordings all the way through, you should also follow along with the article, so that you can both read and hear the words, thus reinforcing both skills. You can also pause and repeat what you hear. If you choose to do this, definitely make sure that you check with the article to ensure that you heard correctly.

If you are really serious about improving your listening skills, the number one suggestion that I have for you is to transcribe what you hear. That means write down what you hear. Play the recording in whichever speed is right for you and then pause after every few words and write down what you hear. It’s ok to go back and listen again. In fact, I believe it’s fine to repeat what you hear up to 3 times. You may want to start out listening to just a few words at a time, but eventually you should try to listen to more and more words.

Don’t just use this page for English listening practice, you should also use it to improve your speaking, reading, comprehension (understanding), and vocabulary skills. I have chosen these articles to share with you for a reason. It’s because they are written in the same way that people speak. This means that you can mimic (copy) words and phrases that you hear and add them to your vernacular (things that you say). Thus allowing you to speak in correct grammar, with more vocabulary, and better phrases.

Read these passages out loud to improve your reading skills. You will also improve your reading and listening skills by repeating after me. This will help you read in the same rhythm as a native speaker, as well as give you the opportunity to hear words pronounced correctly. Furthermore make sure you understand what you are reading. Try to summarize each paragraph, to check for understanding. When you are summarizing, don’t just say a few general words. Summarize in at least two sentences, so that you know you really understood what you read. This will also force you to think and focus on content when you listen and read. Finally, there is some great vocabulary in these passages. As I said earlier these articles are written in the same way that people speak, which means the vocabulary that you learn in these articles is vocabulary that you can use in everyday English conversations.

Now that you know how to use this page, and you understand all of the benefits that you can get from English listening practice, it’s time for you to select an article to listen to. Every week or so I’ll add new articles to the listening sections on this site, so stay tuned.

There are 5 English listening practice levels.

Level 1- is recorded at a very slow speed. This is the best level for beginner students to start with.

Level 2- is recorded at a speed slightly slower than a regular speaking voice.

Level 3- is recorded at the speed of a regular speaking voice

Level 4- is recorded slightly faster than a regular speaking voice

Level 5- is recorded at a very fast speed and this level is best for those students who are focusing on improving their listening skills.

Each level comes with a set of questions for you to answer to test your comprehension. To achieve the best results do the following.

Determine your starting level. Start at level three and adjust from there. If level three is too fast, move down to level 2 or level 1. If you can understand level 3 then continue at that level.

Write what you hear. The best way to improve your listening skills is through dictation. Listen to the recording and write down what you hear. You can stop the recording as often as you like and you can repeat the recording up to 3 times.

Check your work. Look at the article to see if you heard the words correctly and to see if you spelled the words correctly. If you consistently hear more than 10 words incorrectly, then you should consider moving down to a lower level.